Since the decline of literary existentialism, French fiction has been
dominated by four authorsRobbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Butor and
Duraswho write the anti-roman, the non-novel in which characters are
impersonal, time floats out the window, and action is as fragmented as
a cracked kaleidoscope. The casual reader may well have trouble telling
one anti-novelist from another, but in the case of Marguerite Duras,
the problem is simple: she is the only natural writer. The others
construct fiction to demonstrate a pet theory. She...